How does Wandsworth Prison support families?

Support from families reduces reoffending. But how can prisons support family relationships? HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) has said they want to know about the experience of families. This post is a copy of our response to HMIP. It is based on what families have told us about trying to visit and support their loved ones in Wandsworth Prison.

Experience at Wandsworth is that it's sometimes difficult (and always expensive) for prisoners to phone their families, that clothes handed in go missing before ever reaching the man they are for and that visiting can be challenging.

How do we know what families think?

Wandsworth Prison Improvement Campaign works with the families and partners of those in Wandsworth. We meet with families regularly when they visit the prison and at our own meetings, we have set up a Facebook Group, we bring concerns and complaints to the Governor, and we attend the inquests of the deceased to be with the families at this terrible time and to learn what went wrong. To respond to HMIP's call we asked families about their experiences. We put an invitation to families on our website and social media asking for their views. We also produced a questionnaire to focus responses, and we talked to visitors to the prison on 4 afternoons. In total 26 families completed questionnaires or responded to the website.

Our Findings

Question 1

When you knew that your family member or friend was in Wandsworth did you look at the prison website and was it helpful?

There was no enthusiasm for the website whatsoever. Some family members could not read; one comment was it was ‘not written for people like us’.

The only support for the website was from those who had used it to book a visit; the majority found it unapproachable and unhelpful. It was thought to be a generic product of HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and not intended for families to use, and it was said that it gave little guidance on how to best support a prisoner. [Note: the prison website has been updated recently to improve the information about how to hand in clothing]

Question 2

How long did it take him to get a working PIN and phone money so that he could phone you regularly?

Only 6 of 26 respondents had established telephone communication within a week, 5 more thought they had communication within 2 weeks. 10 thought it had taken longer - up to five weeks - and one person had still not established a call link because the cell phone did not work. Several families interviewed spoke of the agony of being unable to find out where the relative or friend was for many days after arrest and of waiting more than a week hoping for news. Then once they knew the family member/friend was in Wandsworth, there was a period of silence again.

Question 3

Did you manage to get any clothes, glasses, books into the prison that he had asked for and how long did he wait?

The responses were very disappointing. 5 families had never succeeded in this task, others had faced long delays and refusals.

Individual answers ranged from: ‘Clothes took a week, books about four weeks’ to ‘yes a week’. One family reported that a first hand-in was allowed on the 30th of June and the prisoner has been in Wandsworth since March. Another said socks and underwear handed in had still not been given to their prisoner. ‘Clothing refused by officers’ ‘ took four weeks before clothing given to him’ ‘ I have been waiting two months to get clothes in, my son says kiosk not working and queue very long’ ‘ brother attempted delivery with a full driving licence with photograph and address but was refused because you need 2 forms of identification’, ‘still waiting, five of eight kiosks not working’, ‘no one told me you could hand clothes in’, ‘it took three weeks until he received them and then he had to hound the officers’, ‘it took three weeks but his glasses were lost’, ‘difficult, so complicated.’  ‘He is too mentally ill to use the kiosk’ ‘Yes but he waited 4 weeks to get the clothes I sent’, ‘the underwear is in, but it's still not been given to him, I've been trying for five weeks’.

The people responding to our questionnaire were confused by the process and felt the prison was unhelpful. They felt that the rules were being used to hamper them supporting their prisoner and it made them frustrated and angry.

 Question 4

Have you ever been worried enough to try to contact the prison and did anyone help you or your prisoner?

Only 6 of 26 people said, yes, they had been worried enough about a prisoner to try and contact the prison.

One said no one helped, one said that they just got redirected a bunch of times, another said yes but no medical help was given, and one person said they had emailed safer custody and asked to talk to somebody and had had a rude and unprofessional response. One person said that they had reported their husband was ill and agitated to a member of prison staff, who replied that he had three meals a day and then put the phone down. Only one person replied positively that they had phoned for help and that they had had a supportive response.

One person did not realise that there was any possibility of contacting the prison although his son was suicidal, and he would have liked to talk to the prison about the risks.

Question 5

Were staff helpful when you came on a visit? How were you treated?

Respondents were evenly split between families who said the experience had been fine or all right, and families who had experienced some rudeness. They particularly found the staff who looked at IDs difficult. One respondent remarked that the staff were rude but were also rude to one another as well: another respondent said that the staff were rude, but the visitors were rude to them.

A woman who had given birth to a baby two days earlier was refused permission to bring in photographs of the baby and was not offered a chair when she had to wait for an hour outside because the visits had been delayed. Similarly, but on another day, a visitor who was over 80, with a zimmer frame complained that he had been made to wait standing on the steps of the prison and had not been offered a chair.

The only people who received praise for their helpfulness were the staff of the PACT House who provide facilities for visitors.

Question 6

Was the visits hall clean and friendly including the WCs? Was there food available?

The visits hall was cheerful and was relatively clean, but many families reported that the WCs were dirty. One mother said that the WCs had been dirty even first thing in the morning.

Visitors were disappointed by the food available which they described as snacks and crisps. They wanted more substantial food available like sandwiches or hot pies. Many commented that the food in the prison was not good and that they wanted to feed up a son or husband on the visit. It was disappointing to have so little food on offer. Items ordered were frequently not available in the hall when they came to collect it.

Question 7

Have you been offered any financial help with the cost of visiting or told that help was available?

There were no positive responses to this question.

Question 8

Have you had any help from the prison when you or your family needed extra support in visiting due for example to disability or emotional or mental problems either with the person inside the prison or within the family?

There were no positive responses to this question. A family described the visit of a family member who walked with crutches and with great difficulty. He was kept behind the other visitors and brought to the visits hall long after everyone else and therefore his visit lasted only 20 minutes.

Question 9

Have you ever been offered a visit by video link or talked about the video link system? Have you tried one and was it any good?

No one knew about the possibility of a video link visit. One family said it would be very useful because they had come from Ireland and the journey had been very expensive and difficult.

Question 10

Have you ever been invited to a Family Day and what was it like?

One family had been to a Family Day and had enjoyed it very much.

Our Conclusions

The Prison Service always emphasises the importance of family support in the process of rehabilitation, but the evidence from our responses is that HMP Wandsworth offers little or no support or help to families when they visit and there is no communication of any welcome to visitors and often a basic lack of courtesy towards them. Families experience visits as a stressful experience, and many said that they feel that they have been treated as inmates themselves during the visit.

Our findings show that there is no special help to visitors who are clearly themselves vulnerable, like the disabled or mothers of tiny babies.  There is an atmosphere of rudeness which communicates such that visitors commented that the staff were rude to each other, and visitors became rude to staff.

This report will no doubt disappoint the Governor who is working hard to improve the overall performance of HMP Wandsworth and faces many challenges, and we accept that changing the culture of an organisation from rudeness to one of respect for each other is not easy and can take time.  He will know, and we are aware, that other prisons do a much better job, and we will continue to campaign for the support he needs in this and in other areas.

And finally a thank you  to the staff of PACT who allowed us to sit with the friends and families visiting the prison to question and record their views .They treated everyone with courtesy and endless patience and we are grateful.

^[1] The Importance of Strengthening Prisoners' Family Ties to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime, published by the Ministry of Justice in 2017